COVID-19 and Georgia’s Reopening, New DOL Guidance on the FFCRA, and Opening Trading Windows
May 5, 2020
Authored by: Matt Macia
The devastating impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) needs no introduction. BCLP has consolidated all of its client alerts regarding Coronavirus (COVID-19) as one page of resources. On that page, you can also limit by topic area, jurisdiction and areas of practice.
In this post, we have highlighted some of the client alerts that we believe may be of specific importance to our community bank clients.

Back to Work: Georgia’s Reopening Executive Order – Risks and Guidance for Businesses
On April 20, 2020, Governor Brian Kemp signed an Executive Order which initiates the process of reopening businesses within the State of Georgia on April 24, 2020, and issued a subsequent Executive Order on April 23, 2020, providing further guidance on the process for reopening (collectively the “Orders”). These Orders, which are quite limited in scope, only grant a small subset of businesses permission to reopen. They do, however, pre-empt all local and city orders that are more or less restrictive than the state-wide Orders.
The Orders, while limited, nevertheless shed light on what the process of reopening will look like for additional business sectors going forward. All companies with locations in Georgia would be wise to invest time planning how they may implement screening, sanitation, and social distancing at their workplace to allow for a timely, safe and compliant reopening.
This alert examines what businesses are permitted to reopen, what restrictions exist for those businesses, and advice and guidance for companies that BCLP anticipates will be affected by similar reopening orders in the future.
As the FFCRA Goes Live, the DOL Continues to Publish Revised and New Guidance for Employers
Although the federal Department of Labor (“DOL”) declared April 1 – 17 to be a temporary period of non-enforcement of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”), the DOL was far from idle during that period. Importantly, the DOL provided key revised and new guidance for employers by: (1) issuing technical corrections to the temporary rule; and (2) posting additional informal questions and answers. The new guidance provides much-needed clarity on key issues, especially since the period of non-enforcement is now over. This post examines the new guidance and provides advice for employers to comply with the provisions of the FFCRA.